The call for protests came days after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused the opposition leader of treason. He said that the coalition had committed "serious" crimes in the run up to May 15 elections. The opposition accuses Meles’ party of stealing. Security forces killed scores protesting the conduct of the vote in demonstrations days after the balloting.

A ban on demonstrations imposed at the time of the elections was lifted in July.

"We will only use legal (protest) measures allowed under the constitution," Shawel said. "We have never had arms. We do not have guns."

"Our struggle is to change the government using peaceful means allowed within the law," Shawel told journalists. "This is not treason."

But Information Minister Berhan Hailu accused the opposition of resorting to illegal measures to try to undermine the constitution.

Members of Shawel’s party have refused to take up their 109 seats in the 547-seat lower house of parliament to protest rules passed by the previous house that were intended to limit their powers and intimidate them. The new rules stipulate that only parties with 51% of parliamentary seats can propose motions and present an agenda.

Previously, only 20 lawmakers needed to support a motion before it was tabled in parliament.

"When we see all this it is clear that the ruling party is transgressing the constitution with impunity," Shawel said. "We were hoping the situation would improve, but it is getting worse each day."

CUD accuses government of killing six membersAddis Ababa - Ethiopia's leading opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), accused the government Friday of killing 6 of its members and arresting 837 others over the past three weeks.

In a statement, CUD chairman Hailu Shawul accused the government of numerous human rights violations, including the harassment, beating and unlawful arrest of CUD supporters and the forced eviction of opposition leaders from their lands.

Some 25 of the party's branch offices had been ransacked, he added.

Apart from the hundreds of people arrested, hundreds of others were illegally rounded up by government forces during the last two months, the CUD alleged.

'The burning issue today is the right of the people to resist and protect themselves against government's unconstitutional measures,' said Shawul, calling on Ethiopians to 'band together to protect themselves and assert their constitutional rights'.

The CUD is involved in a ongoing row with the authorities over the results of May general elections.

Some 109 elected members of parliament have boycotted the new parliament in protest over the alleged election fraud.

The ruling EPRDF Party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, which won 327 seats in the 547-seat legislature, pushed through a motion to strip boycotting CUD members of their parliamentary immunity.

Attempts by the ambassadors of Britain and the United States to convince the CUD to join the new parliament have failed amid the party's calls for its arrested members and supporters to be released first.

Hailu said that Western donor countries were trying to arrange another round of talks with the government to end the CUD boycott.

The CUD has also refused to take its seats in Addis Ababa's city administration, where it won a overwhelming majority in the May polls.

'We insist that the talks should be unconditional, with the government side ready to consider respect of human rights in the country and others (items) we consider relevant for discussion,' he said.